Maggot
by WorldsPariah
Summary: Taylor dies in the Locker. Taylor dies a couple of times in the Locker. The sheer, endless panic and constant deaths do something VERY strange to her powers. Alt! Power Taylor. This is my first fic.
1. Chapter 1

Death 1.1

[Requirement]

[Caution]

[Reassurance][Requirement]

[... Agreement]

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._ The sound of my heart starting again was the sweetest sound I ever heard. It also led to the worst moment of my life because I was STILL TRAPPED IN THE FUCKING LOCKER. Strength renewed by the close brush with death, I started screeching for help again, gagging as the smell of... everything registered once more.

I beat my hands bloody on the Locker, desperately smashing through the rusted metal and staggering out into the hallway, before collapsing into a heap. A small, pathetic mound of misery. I crawled to the wall opposite the Locker and stared numbly, blearily around. My heart rate was beginning to slow down already as the panic gave away to shock except... Should I be thinking this clearly? And why was my heart still slowing down?

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._ The sound of my heart starting again was the sweetest sound I ever heard. It also led to the worst moment of my life because I was STILL TRAPPED IN THE FUCKING LOCKER. Strength renewed by the close brush with death, I started screeching for help again, gagging as the smell of... everything registered once more.

I stopped. This _just_ happened. Horror flooded my veins and I stopped screeching, shivering in the dark. Tears streamed down my face as I felt my heart-rate slow again. The edges of my vision went blurry, and then faded to black. The last thing I heard was my own wretched sobbing.

(Some time later)

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._ No. Nonononono. I breathed frantically, hyperventilating in order to induce panic. I beat my chest, trying to keep my heart beating. The filth around me was just another feature of this inescapable h- Don't get distracted Taylor. You have to keep your heart beating or it'll all start again. Useless.

My arms become sore and tired. I grow dizzy as what little oxygen is in the Locker, my personal corner of hell, is used up faster than it can be replenished. My heart slows. Less than a minute later, it stops, my vision fades and the last thing I hear is my own death rattle, as tears slowly, ever so slowly, slide down my face.

 _Thump._ No. _Thump._ NO. _Thump._ **NO.** _Thump._ [REJECTION!]. My limbs became numb, and I suddenly felt exhausted, the manic, panic-induced strength leaving me.

I fell asleep, in the Locker. I'd been in it long enough for it to become warm. I'd suffered enough, become numb enough that it didn't bother me anymore. Sleep... Not death. I never wanted to find out how often I had died in there, how many times my heart gave out.

When I woke up, I wasn't in the Locker anymore. I could tell because the warmth, rising from that rotting, fetid mass was gone. I couldn't hear the buzzing of the flies, nor could I feel the wriggling of the maggots as they _ate my rotted flesh, crept into my mouth, slid down my rancid throat-_ A few calming breaths later and the crisis was averted. I opened my eyes, staring out into the darkness. I tried stretching, only to find walls of cool metal in front of me. Similar walls were at my sides. What?

The cold finally hit me then. Sure, the East coast was chilly, and could be freezing cold in the winter, but if I didn't know any better I would've thought I was in a fridge... The pieces clicked into the place then.

A morgue. I was in a shelf, in a morgue. I slowly managed to turn myself onto my front. I felt my way around until I found the telltale gap of the door. And then I punched it. The metal held. So I hit it again. This wasn't the Locker. So I should be able to leave. I wasn't in Hell anymore, and I was _never_ going back. Another punch. The door fell off, rusted metal shattering on the ground.

"Huh" Was all I managed to say, weakly, before wriggling out and collapsing to the morgue floor. That should have hurt more. I slowly struggled to my feet and looked around. I muttered despondently. "Definitely a morgue. What the fuck."

I leaned against a wall and slid down again. My heart was blessedly silent, which meant I wasn't in danger of going back into the Locker. On the other hand, I slept like the dead. I giggled a little at that, hopelessly. My eyes were filled with tears again.

Eventually, someone found me. Which, naturally caused them to freak out, and run away screaming. A security guard poked his head around the corner some time later. He coughed awkwardly. "Uh... Are you..." He trailed off, before composing himself. "Do you need help?" He asks. I nodded, uncertainly at first then more vigourously.

The room lights didn't turn on when he flipped the switch, but he just shrugged and started picking his way across until he reached me. When I stood, with his help, a wave of dizziness swept over me and I staggered slightly. "Let's get you to a doctor." He said gently.

Things went rapidly downhill after that again, but just for a moment, all was well. Someone cared.


	2. Chapter 2

Death 1.2

The security guard brought me to reception, from where a nurse took me to an empty room – thanks to Panacea, there were always a few spare beds in Brockton Bay General Hospital. The nurse, whose name was... Annette. Tears came to my eyes very suddenly. After _that_ blow to my psyche, the bed was quite welcoming, and I settled down to wait.

About three hours later, and after a check-up of my general health, which apart from the absence of a heartbeat was described as 'excellent', a doctor entered with a policeman in tow. "Hello Ms. Hebert" The doctor said, flipping through a chart. "This is Special Investigator Morrows from the PRT, and I am Dr. Olden. SI Morrows is investigating your murder in conjunction with the police, as in preliminary examination of the scene it was determined that forcing yourself into the locker and locking the door from the outside would be impossible. Quite how the locker came to be in the emergency room is still under investigation"

He paused. "Do you understand what I am saying?" I began to nod before my attention hitched on the word 'murder'. I frowned and asked "If I'm alive, why is the detective investigating my murder?"

Detective Morrows coughed and spoke up "Following the decision in the State of Alaska v. Merial, if a Parahuman is killed long enough for an investigation into their murder to be started, even if the Parahuman later returns to life. 787 U.S. 896, 2005." He grimaced. "Which they really should legislate properly, but for now it'll do. The state has retained the services of Carol Dallon in the light of the autopsy results, which is why Dr. Olden is here."

The doctor, whose name suited his appearance quite well nodded. "Ms. Hebert, this is your autopsy report. It should be quite informative." He extended the file, and I carefully took it. For some reason, my hands were shaking. The shaking suddenly became a violent spasming, and pain lanced up from my limbs to my chest. The file went tumbling from my hands, as body-scouring pain ripped through me, and then all I saw was darkness.

When I came to, Dr. Olden helped me up again. "You were out for one minute, nineteen seconds after a suspected seizure." He informed me. His voice, I noticed, was monotone, much like his tone was factual. He was not, I suspected, a man who often had to speak to his... 'patients'. He gestured towards the autopsy report, and then turned to dismiss a pair of nurses who were in the room. They hadn't been there before I passed out.

The smell of rot crept up my nose for a moment, and I turned to look out the window. In an alleyway across the street, there was a mugging. I blinked when I realised I could see it just fine, while everything else stayed just as blurry as I normally was without my glasses. I blinked again, and the moment passed, and the mugger walked away.

[Failure]

Tears stung my eyes, and a horrible sense of guilt washed over me for a moment. I should have helped, I scolded myself. I had nothing other than helping others anymo- I violently shook my head to throw off the... external thought. I had my dad. I had my future, even if my grades weren't great right now. I had [to save people].

I turned to look at the file in my hands, and opened it. There were quite a few pictures, depicting my naked body and the changes that had happened to it and... I paused, noticing an unusual white mass on a picture of my leg. "What is that?" I asked Dr. Olden.

"Those would be the maggots." He said calmly. I felt bile rise in my throat, and had to keep myself from retching. Maggots. MAGGOTS had grown in my leg.

"But the interesting part is that your skin and nails are made of the same metal as your locker, ordinary biological materials, tarmac and a scattering of other materials. Nevermind what happened to your heart which is on ah... page 7?" He actually seemed mildly interested now. I duly turned to the page.

I stared. In the middle of my chest was a mass of some sort of crystalline flesh. "And f you think that's shocking, when we checked your brain, we found no sign of you being a Parahuman _at all_ " Dr. Olden added. "Although with all the other evidence, we've decided to classify you as one anyway. It seems like a safe bet."

I nodded uncertainly. "I don't feel super." I muttered under my breath, prompting a laugh from SI Morrows. "I'm sure it'll come" He assured me. "Now, would you like to wait for your father to get here, or a lawyer before I start asking you questions?"

I was silent for a moment, still flipping through the booklet that detailed the changes to my body. I stopped and stared into space. "I'd like my dad to be here" I said quietly. I felt small. I would have to admit _everything_ to my father. All the things I had kept to myself to keep him from getting stressed out. Every time I had wanted to cry out to him, but had been too afraid. I would have to inflict all of these things and more on him, and soon. And there was nothing I could do.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N

Writing is hard. Who knew!

Mike: This is not a crossover. Things will become clear in time.

Death 1.3

Dr. Olden left to cut up some more corpses I supposed, leaving SI Morrows and I to stare at each other as we waited for Dad. He kept glancing at his phone until eventually, he arose frowning. "It's been half an hour. He should be here by now." He looked at me. "Will you be alright by yourself? I'll go and make a call..." He trailed off looking at the strict-looking, young woman who stood in the doorway.

"Hello. My name is Darlene Adams and I'm from CPS" She looked at me. "Are you Ms Taylor Hebert?" I nodded wordlessly before the SI stepped between me and her. "Can I see some ID please?" He demanded. The woman's expression twitched and she reached for her handbag "You should not have been able to access this area-" SI Morrows was interrupted by a loud cracking sound, and he collapsed, bleeding from a hole in his chest.

The woman pointed the gun at me. "Why couldn't you just stay dead?" She snarled at me. "My job was fine... All I had to do was sign the same report with some small variations, keep my dear little 'asset' sharp as a knife, vicious as a hound and seemingly innocent as a babe as far as the PRT was concerned. But no. _You_ had to come along and ruin it all."

She grinned savagely at me. "No matter, you little bitch" She laughed, shakily. It became a manic cackling before trailing off. "Once we're done, nobody will ever listen to you again..." She grinned, and stowed the gun she had shot Morrows with. Her hand came out of her bag holding a scalpel and she drew close to me. I couldn't move a muscle. I was too weak. Worthless. Unable and unwilling to resist.

It was only as the scalpel began nearing my mouth that I started feebly struggling, craning my neck to get away from the blade. Darlene hissed, grabbing me by the throat. "Stop moving sweety" She said, quietly, in an all too sweet voice. "It'll hurt less..." She collapsed to the side, suddenly, groaning in pain. The scalpel clattered to the ground. "What did you do to me" The woman whispered, in horror.

My mind snapped back into the present. The narcissistic BITCH had tried to cut my tongue out with a scalpel, and she was worried about what I did to _her_! Fury restarted my heart for a moment, causing it to thud painfully from inside its crystal shell. Just the once of course. Still, it was sufficient to send me into a panicked frenzy, and I hauled myself out of bed, and kicked Darlene. Again. Again. _Again_.

A man in PRT armour rushed into the room and froze, staring at the woman at my feet, and my panting form. "What..." My mouth was dry. "WHAT WERE YOU DOING?" I screamed at him. His head turned towards Morrow's corpse, and his foam gun came up, warily pointed at me. Darlene moaned and gasped "She's a Blaster, Rob. She killed him!"

"What? I didn't kill-" Foam blasted me, and filled my mouth. I couldn't see. The foam was soft. Almost squishy. Like the Locker. I couldn't even scream, as it took all my concentration to keep my heart from beating. The darkness was bad. The sensation was awful. The smell was odd, overwhelmingly chemical with just a hint of rot.

The containment foam was liquefying around me, flowing away. It dribbled out of my mouth, until I had enough space to retch and force it all out. It tasted awful, and the fact that it was rotting didn't help. The foam faded away. Darkness rose in front of me, before burning away in a blaze of electricity. Instinctively, I stepped back. The Locker's door closed on me, leaving me trapped in a small, metal coffin. At least, I thought to myself, it's clean this time. A lonely tear trickled down my face.


	4. Chapter 4

Death 1.4

I was in the Locker. My Heart was still stopped, of course, so instead of breathless panic, I was filled with an icy tranquility. My enemies were outside the small dark space that enfolded me like a mockery of an embrace. A trickle of blood ran down the wall, and I felt rather than heard the impact on the outside of the Locker.

I sank into myself as much as I could, bitter thoughts drowning out what little hope I had harboured. All I had wanted was to be left in peace, and maybe for Emma to come back and _to fill the empty aching void left by her departure by following the words of another broken man_. A strange thought, not quite my own, but still. Anyway, saving people.

I stepped back out of the Locker, and caught a taser to the chest. Pain exploded across my body, but compared to the Locker, it was as nothing. I growled, and staggered forwards towards the PRT officer who panicked, dropped the taser and ran. I tore the spines and wires free, hissing as the hot metal stung my hands, and looked around. SI Morrows was still on the floor, most likely dead, and the 'CPS' agent was nowhere to be seen.

A path of clarity drew my attention to the window. Without my glasses, it was the only thing that I could see properly, so I started moving slowly towards it. Then a sense of urgency swept over me, and I lunged forward, smashing through the window. I rolled as I hit the ground, and looked around. There were three paths now, but the sense or urgency pushed me down a particular one and I began to run again.

The path lead me to an alleyway where a man had a woman pinned against the wall with his hips.. Disgust and fury overwhelmed me, alongside an odd sense of surprise. I ran forward, and grabbed the man by his thinning, greasy hair. I slammed his head into the wall as hard as I could and he collapsed, yelling as he clutched his head. The woman looked at me in terror, then down at the man and then began hobbling, staggering away, pulling her clothes back into place. Her eyes never left me, as she backed slowly away.

The clear path went up the walls all of a sudden and I had to go. A short run up, and I was jumping from wall to wall as if I had done it all my life. When I landed, it was on top of a mugger. Again, just a little too late to actually save the victim, but enough to get vengeance on their behalf. Again, a look of fear, mixed with awe, and off I went again. I dragged a burglar out of a house, and he shot me. It hurt, a lot, but I wasn't losing much blood and he hadn't hit anything important, so once I had beaten him unconscious, I moved on again.

At some point, I cut my feet on some broken glass, which made running painful. My knuckles split when I was fighting off some policemen who... interfered. I broke my arm when some gangbanger took a pipe to it. Clear paths sprang up guiding my through filth, both mortal and inert matter, but it didn't matter. The paths faded when I was too slow, which meant that they faded more and more often as I got slower. Frustration filled me then, and despair.

I staggered after a path that had been there all day, bending and twisting as if to follow someone. It tried to lead me over the rooves of the city, but I couldn't climb, and soon the path relented, sending me through the streets instead. I walked into one of the better off neighbourhoods, and supressed a shudder. The people who had needed saving here... couldn't be, usually. That was the time the police came, dragging me off an abusive wife. Her husband and child had already been begging for forgiveness as I was being dragged out the door.

A notable failure, on a day of failures and partial successes. I dragged myself along until the path abruptly stopped. I frowned, and looked around. Then I looked up to see Glory Girl and Panacea passing overhead. They were perfectly clear to my sight, and I frowned. Who could hurt those two? They landed in front of a house a little ways away, and the clarity moved to follow Panacea. A fluttering of happiness came over me, before ice poured from my heart and quashed these foreign feelings. It also dimmed the pain enough for me to start hobbling forwards again. Note to self: stopping while in agony is bad.


	5. Chapter 5

Death 1.5

I staggered and stumbled towards the pair, but they didn't notice me until I fell on my broken arm and yelped. Glory Girl's head whipped around, and she moved almost instinctively between myself and Panacea who looked at me with a mixture of anger, resignation and something else. She huffed, and made to move past Glory Girl.

"Amy" She hissed. "We don't know who she is, what are you doing?" Amy scowled and said "She's injured Vicky. I'll be fine." She examined me and sighed. "Do I have your permission to heal you?" She asked, approaching me at a brisk pace. I tried to say something, but all that came was a painful cough, which became an agonizing fit, which left me wheezing on the ground. Still, I looked for the elusive hint of danger. Where was the threat to Panacea's health?

It occurred to me that I'd do better with healing, so I nodded weakly. She reached out and touched my skin. There was a sense of prickling, and twisting. "What. The. ACTUAL. Fuck." Amy said flatly after a while. I glanced up at her, and saw her gazing off into the distance. Then her gaze turned to me, oddly predatory. I resisted the urge to gulp. She couldn't hold me after all. Nothing could if I didn't want it. Still, she was almost painfully clear to my sight, and _there was still no danger_.

I got up, looming over Amy, who still had her hand on my wrist, and started frantically looking around. There was nobody. "You're coming with me" Amy declared suddenly. "I... What?" I was confused. So was Glory Girl who said "Amy! You can't just bring her home!" For some reason that made Amy blush, and she started arguing with Glory Girl again but I was too busy looking around for any sign of danger.

Try as I might, I couldn't spot it. Then a clear path sprang up to a nearby window that a child was looking out of, and I was moving. I had only taken a dozen steps when Glory Girl came after me, yelling... something? It didn't matter, I had a path to follow that wasn't so confusing. I jumped and began scaling the wall. The child backed away from the window, and I saw a stereotypical boy's room before I smashed through the window. The door opened a moment later to reveal a behemoth of a man, reeking of alcohol. He stared at me stupidly and silence fell before the remainder of the window was demolished by Glory Girl's entrance.

The tension in the room rose _massively_ as I examined the man. The young boy was threatened. The man was drunk, and seemingly violent. There was a path leading past him somewhere else and I began edging around him. Glory Girl was taking in the scene still when my movement caused the man to twitch. He howled and lunged for the boy and -

 **TERROR.**

I screamed then, tears springing to my eyes. The child was screaming, the man was screaming. Glory Girl was frozen, terror pouring off her. I followed the path to find the other scream. I quickly found the woman and dragged her out of the house, then ran back inside and upstairs. I had mere moments to breath between screams, when I saw that the man was clear in my vision now. The boy had faded back into a blurry mess, and Glory Girl had stayed that way, but the man... Wasn't getting a break to breathe. Glory Girl was looking at him furiously and drifting ever closer. How she could ignore the racket I didn't know but...

I punched her. I don't know which one of us was more surprised, but the all-consuming terror faded almost instantly. I didn't think she had even felt it, but the man collapsed, smelling even worse than before.

* * *

We waited outside for the emergency services to come. I saw paths spring up and vanish, but I forced myself to wait. The run-in with Glory Girl had helped clear my mind a bit, and Panacea was still perfectly clear to my eyes. If she was in danger, saving her would allow the saving of so, so many more.

Glory Girl was looking confused and angry, and a gamut of other things, but not guilty. Panacea just looked tired. Velocity arrived first, and had a brief talk with them before coming over to me. He looked somewhat sad. "Ms. Hebert." He sighed and took a deep breath. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come with me. You are under arrest on suspicion of murder, assault with a parahuman power, physical assault, breaking and entering, resisting arrest, and a host of other minor charges. Do you understand?"

I looked at him silently, and then pointed down one of the paths. "Someone's in danger down that way." I pointed in another direction. "Someone is in danger in that direction." I was silent for a while and then said. "I understand that you want to arrest me. That that is what you are told to do. There are... sixty people in range that I could go to and help. Panacea is the closest and is in danger from a source I cannot identify."

I started down a path, not moving particularly quickly. "So. Why should I submit to arrest, when there are all these people that need help?" Velocity frowned, walking next to me. "Do they need _your_ help though? There are others, and you have committed crimes in the process of helping everyone from gangbangers to children to dragging a suicidal man out of the sea."

I was silent. I couldn't help but feel I was missing something in what he was saying. Ultimately, it did not matter. "This... saving... is all I have?" I asked. I wasn't sure, there was something, some sense that I had forgotten something. Velocity seemed confused. "What about your father?" He asked gently, and I stopped dead.

"My... father... Dad..." Tears welled up again, stinging my eyes but doing nothing to reduce the clarity of those newly accursed paths. I had lost myself in them after seeing a man get shot. After returning, somehow, to the Locker. After being tazed by one of the people who worked for the heroes. "Can I see him? Will he see me?" Velocity paused. "If you come along with me, you'll be able to see him fairly soon... He's in protective custody right now." He seemed uncertain how to proceed, and was falling back on his orders.

He gestured for me to come and I, turning away from forty people whom I could have avenged or saved, followed him. It broke my hearts.


	6. Chapter 6

Death 1.6

While Velocity and I walked - I had taken one look at the van, with its darkness and metal walls, and violently shaken my head, which had created a patina of rust on the doors - I pondered my situation. I was some sort of Parahuman. I had lost my self. There was something nagging me. I was obviously depressed, which despite everything was a bit of a shock. Realising and acknowledging it.

There was an echo of that realisation. I ignored it, focusing on the present, and whatever could be threatening Panacea. Velocity left me alone, apart from walking along next to me. Paths sprang up and fell apart as the plight of dozens went unanswered. Each broken path slowed my steps a little more, and twisted my emotions a little further.

After three blocks, it took immense effort to put one foot in front of the other. Why wasn't I saving them? I couldn't remember. I took a step that would lead me away but Velocity murmured something about a father... My father! Dad! And so I could keep moving again, away from the city and its suffering. There was a brief flash as Scion shot by overhead, going somewhere. A path vanished, and did not pain me. Then another.

Another flash, and Scion was gone again. More paths faded as crime rates in the city dropped. The rest of the way was easy enough.

Soon after, I found myself in an interrogation room, sitting across from a face PRT trooper. He cleared his throat and pressed the 'Recording' button. I had declined a lawyer. "Officer James Mahon interviewing Taylor Hebert, official code name Revenant." He glanced at me and I took a few seconds to turn the name over in my head. Decent enough, I supposed. I had been given a mask.

"Revenant, SI Morrows was found dead in your hospital room, and an accusation levelled against you by one Darlene Adams, who is purportedly an agent of the Child Protective Services. Did you use a Blaster power to project a shard of ice into SI Morrow's heart, thereby killing him?" I shook my head and managed to mumble a half-hearted "No." It was unlikely that they would believe me. A moment passed while the officer wrote something down.

"Revenant, you proceeded to escape the room after being attacked. Do you accept this as a fact? Please state your opinion for the record." I nodded and said "Yes." "Why did you do so?" I paused. "I... followed a path. I... had to? I couldn't see anything else properly." The officer nodded. "You then proceeded towards a nearby crime in progress and became violent, concussing the perpetrator of..." He frowned looking at the paper in front of, and then looked at me.

"Yes. I attacked him while he was doing... That." I shuddered. Officer Mahon nodded. "Do you recall what happened next?" I frowned and said "I jumped from wall to wall to reach the rooftops, then proceeded to follow another path at random." A scribbled note. "And you came across another crime?" I nodded. "State for the record please" He said automatically and monotonously. "Yes, I came across another crime. I was frustrated I hadn't gotten there earlier. I do not recall the details."

The officer raised an eyebrow. "You broke a woman's arms. No matter..."

We went over many more incidents, until we came to my meeting with Panacea. "And the path led you to... Panacea? And you are sure she is or was in danger?" I nodded fervently. "I still can't figure out how she was. Is. I don't know, and thinking about it gives me a headache." The officer nodded and said "And at this point, you found a new path into a nearby building?"

"Yes, and I took it to get away from Panacea. And then the man was in danger from Glory Girls aura so I hit her." The man nodded thoughtfully. "Very well. We will now take you to a holding cell. You will be able to meet your father in half an hour."

Time passed. My father arrived. There was a lot of crying, mumbled explanations, and then he left for a bit. I think I fell asleep for a bit, and when I woke up he was sitting in the cell across from mine. He noticed me wake up, and gave me a sheepish smile. For a while, we just lay on our respective cots, and watched each other, before finally I fell asleep.

The cell bars were gone when I woke up, reduced to little piles of rust. More importantly, I had a pair of strange limbs extending from my back, made of metal not all dissimilar to the what the cell bars had been made of.


End file.
